The Return of the Grey

by Robert Lee Henry

  ‘Johnson, six Supply crews also, to handle food, water, ammo, all the basics.’ Quartermaine turned to the Armourer. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘A repair crew for the Rangers’ ships. And some spares,’ he advised.

  ‘Okay, Oulte, you talk to Deacon on that. Remember, everything goes by tomorrow.’

  *

  Tollen kept pacing, not really following this talk of services and supply. The old man was building up to something, something he didn’t want to do. He knew Quartermaine well enough to see that. Tollen feared it involved him. Why call all the sergeants in? Some of us should be out there working if he wants us off immediately.

  ‘Those crews will free up close to a hundred marines for the line. Every marine on Base will go with you. Those on customs duty have already been recalled. They should be in tonight.’ Quartermaine was talking to the sergeants again. ‘With the marines already on the Rim, it will give you a force of around six hundred men.’

  Tollen stopped his pacing.

  ‘No one goes that is not battle fit,’ said Quartermaine.

  Tollen’s heart froze when the Commander’s gaze fixed on him.

  ‘I know what you marines are like,’ continued Quartermaine. ‘I don’t want Med emptying out into the hangars. Don’t take anyone that can’t hold his own. This is going to be hard, real hard. They won’t just slow you down. They’ll die and they’ll put you and the mission at risk.’

  I’m going grey but I’m younger than you, old man, protested Tollen in his mind.

  Quartermaine rose from the chair and approached. Tollen clenched his fists. The Commander turned and took up the marine’s old path, pacing the side of the room.

  ‘There is not much left of your command. Chalkley is the only officer remaining and he is wounded. He and I have been talking.’ The old man stopped to face the other sergeants. ‘This is the way it’s going to go. Mancine is promoted to sergeant as of now. He goes in under Chalkley and assists with the command function. The rest of you will have a hundred men each, in squads as usual, with two medics for each unit.’

  That’s it then. Tollen’s heart fell. I can count. With three sergeants on the Rim and four here, there’s one too many.

  Quartermaine walked back to the wall and turned to stand next to him. Side by side, facing the room, they were close enough for Tollen to feel the old man’s shoulders tense. Here it comes.

  ‘There is one more ‘out’ we haven’t spoken of. We’ve been out-thought. Our enemy has studied the Rim, learned to predict the movements of the larger fragments, something we’ve long thought impossible. They anticipate the collisions, forecast what ground is opening up and what is closing and use it to their advantage. They plan, we react. That’s about as much as we know about their tactics. We can only guess at their strategy. As I said, this is not the old push and shove. This is a war. My guess is that they mean to take the Rim and annihilate the marines at the same time.’ He stopped to let that sink in. ‘Chalkley and the Armourer are with me on this. With their advantages, the enemy could have forced us from the Rim already. They are waiting for something. You know how the Rim shifts. What’s in front of you can end up behind you. Maybe they are just waiting for a movement like that. Maybe they are waiting until all the marines are there. Most likely, both. We may be playing into their hands, probably have been all along. Because they have been out-thinking us. That has to stop. We have to beat them at their own game.’

  How? questioned Tollen, thoughts of his own situation forgotten.

  ‘I know you marines aren’t used to anyone else directing you on the ground. I suspect our enemy also knows that,’ continued Quartermaine. ‘The near elimination of your command is not by chance. It is part of their strategy. We need a strategy of our own, with tactics that not only counter theirs but improve on them. This is old-style war and we need an old-style command, a general, there, on the ground. Ours has to be cleverer than theirs.’

  Is he going himself? Is that why he is standing beside me?

  ‘The Armourer takes command of this Battle Group right now. That’s the marines, the Far Rangers, and anyone else I send up there. This action doesn’t end until the Rim is secure.’

  From the look on his face the Armourer was as surprised as the rest of them.

  He doesn’t take part in actions. Everyone knows that, thought Tollen.

  The sitting man’s shock passed to anger quickly. ‘No! I don’t want this. I haven’t asked for this. It is not my responsibility!’

  Quartermaine was hard as iron when he replied. ‘This is not a proposal or a request. This is an order.’

  ‘I don’t do this. I’m a specialist, a technician. I provide armament and advice on its use. I don’t … I …

  ‘You don’t lead. Is that what you’re trying to say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you do now.’ Quartermaine moved off the wall, advancing on the seated man like a landslide. Tollen heard him mumble under his breath ‘This must be the day for it.’ Looming over the Armourer, Quartermaine’s next words were as severe as anything Tollen had ever heard on Base. ‘I want your full measure in this. I mean everything you can do to the best of your ability. To the utmost, unto death, if necessary.’

  ‘My life is nothing,’ said the Armourer quietly. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for their lives. I promised myself, never again.’

  ‘In better times I would leave you with that vow, as stupid as it is. Now I can’t afford to. You are the best we have for this. You know that as well as I. As to lives, ours are forfeit as soon as we join the Guard.’ The old man shook his head as if he had been in a fight. ‘Life is not cheap on Base, but it is here to be spent.’

  He will do, thought Tollen, brightening. The Armourer is okay. The marines will follow him. He’s smart. He’s not one of us but he knows us. He proved that in the mess, weeks back when the first lot of wounded from the second contingent arrived from the Rim. Drunk, the Armourer had staggered into the Number 7 Mess during the first meal period dragging a sledge hammer with the remains of Tommo’s hardsuit over his shoulder. The second contingent had sent it back with the wounded. It was all they had found of the big marine, the two arms of the suit held together by a chain wrapped in a figure eight, the chain welded stiff by the heat of lasers and the concussion of projectiles.

  The enemy had almost taken the whole contingent as they disembarked. The mag cannons saved them, Tommo and Macky at the head of one valley with the modified hardsuit, Seca and her squad on a single mounted unit in front of the transports. They held long enough for the squads to get organised and up on the ridges. Later, after the battle had quieted, when they were gathering their dead, the arms of the hardsuit were found on the far side of the valley, the six mag cannons intact, Tommo’s arms still inside. Must have wrapped the chain around when the suit started failing, to keep the fire going. He could see the two of them doing that. They didn’t find anything of Macky. Seca lost most of her squad and came back shorter herself.

  Tommo’s arms were ashed in a service on the way back, with the rest of the recovered dead. No one knew what to do with the remnant of the suit, only that they didn’t want to discard it. Finally they left it on a bench in the armoury, for the Armourer to take apart and study, or store, or something. No one expected it to go on a wall.

  With wild swings of the sledge, the Armourer had belted a spike into the wall of the Number 7 Mess up as high as he could reach. After three tries he was finally successful in hanging the arms. Two tries got him back to his feet. ‘There!’ he had called to the marines in the mess, ‘Now you can see how stupid you are every day!’ before falling down again.

  He looks like he could use a drink right now, thought Tollen. The old marine swung a quick glance around the room. The Armourer might be dismayed but the rest in the room weren’t. Now they had a chance, more than a chance. The Armourer was smart and crafty. He could put this together.

  ‘Okay. You all best get started,’ said Quartermaine, d
ismissing them. ‘You have priority on the pads and hangars but I want you off in less than a day. They will know you are coming so the less time they have to get ready the better.’

  The Commander sat back down at one of the tables as the others made ready to leave. Johnson moved past him to pass a bag to Oulte and give the Armourer a hand up. He’ll be fine, thought Tollen. Once he gets his teeth in the job.

  Tollen was behind them, almost at the door when Quartermaine called to him. ‘Tollen, hang back a bit. I need to talk to you.’

  Oh oh, thought Tollen. Here it comes. He turned slowly, stepped to the side to let Deacon past. Then the room was empty but for the two of them.

  Delaney reappeared in the doorway, the other marines behind him. They knew something was up. Tollen signalled them to go. He didn’t want them waiting for him if this was what he thought.

  Quartermaine pointed to a chair on the other side of the table. Tollen sat down stiffly. Two tomatoes had miraculously appeared on the tabletop. He studied them rather than look at Quartermaine’s face. Nice red fruit, he thought. Must be Tracka-dan’s. He picked one up and rolled it in his fingers. Is that what he is going to tell me? Time to go farming.

  ‘Tollen, we have been together a long time. I know how important it is for you to be with your corps but I have something different to ask of you,’ said the Commander.

  Ask? Why not an order like everyone else? Don’t make me do this to myself. That’s not hard, that’s cruel.

  ‘I want you to look after the service and supplymen we’re sending up. They haven’t been trained for the Rim. It could kill them whether they get near combat or not.’ Quartermaine reached for the other tomato. ‘We haven’t got any time. You will have to teach them as you go. It will be difficult. There are over a hundred men and they will be spread out once the action starts.’ He leaned back, inspecting his tomato as thoroughly as Tollen had done the other. ‘Oulte and the Rangers have the skills they need. Their job is hard but they know how to go about it. Same for the marines. It is a tough ask but that’s the way it is in the Guard. These others though ... I don’t feel good about putting untrained men up there. I want you to look after them, save a bit of my conscience. Will you do it?’

  Looking after non-combatants on the Rim, green as grass, in the middle of a war. At least they would be on a big piece, with air and gravity. The smaller bits were real bastards. Low gravity, fields blasting through all the time, and atmosphere, if there was any, that could be sucked away in an instant. All suit work. He couldn’t keep untrained people alive under those conditions but on a big piece, yah, maybe. What a job, thought Tollen. A good job.

  ‘Yeah, sure, Commander,’ he said, raising a smile.

  Quartermaine seemed perplexed. ‘You look relieved. I thought you might need more convincing.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I didn’t know what else I could say.’

  They both stood with their tomatoes in hand. Tollen laughed as they walked to the door.

  ‘What’s funny?’ asked Quartermaine.

  ‘I thought you thought I was too old,’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘What?’ said Quartermaine. ‘Hell, Tollen, I’m older than you.’

  At the door the Commander caught his arm. ‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘He can do this. But if he goes into the bottle, you take over until I can get there.’

  CHAPTER 34: FAREWELLS

  Aesca stood on the punched metal deck of one of the high walkways rimming the open space of the main hangar. The rail was cold in her hand in the early morning air but she couldn’t let go. She was tired. She had worked through the night. Go to bed or back to work, she ordered herself. It didn’t work. She couldn’t let go.

  Mist floated into the corner above her, condensed on the cold metal and ran silently down the walls. She matched the mist with a tear of her own.

  ‘Now, Medic, what could make you so angry so early in the day?’

  The words came from La Mar, the Amazon commander. Aesca had not heard her approach. The Commander’s words brought sound and colour back to the world. The squeak of boots on steel drew her attention to several other Amazons shuffling self-consciously a few metres away. Aesca recognised Rhone and Bethane. Beyond them there were more people again. Casting her gaze out and down, Aesca saw that the whole scene had changed, like dawn on a field of flowers. The bright colours of the cadres picked out the dark tracery of walkways and steps; sombre greys and browns filled in and overflowed onto the aprons of the flat bays.

  The marines were loading out down below, and with them, crews from Supply and Services. The Far Rangers had already lifted, flashes in the night sky seen from the windows of Med while she had argued and connived and ultimately conceded.

  ‘Ah. It’s the Rim. I see,’ said La Mar. ‘Bad ground to us, an outright enemy to you.’ The sturdy woman leaned over the rail, frowned then swallowed.

  She would have spat to end that comment if there weren’t people down below, realised Aesca. It is good of her to charge my tears to anger. Everyone expects that of me. The truth, I don’t want to share. That I am heartsick and hollow.

  Again, La Mar’s voice brought her back. ‘Look. There is Tollen with his lot.’ She laid a hand on Aesca’s shoulder and turned to flick her head to the other Amazons, beckoning them forward. ‘All of Base must be here to see them off.’ Rhone and the others moved to the edge.

  ‘May as well be,’ said Rhone reaching the rail. ‘This is something you might not see again. Probably won’t see them again.’

  La Mar bent forward and glared across Aesca’s chest at the big woman who shrugged in return.

  ‘Look at them, how proud they are to go with the marines,’ said Bethane. ‘Would we have gone, Commander, if Quartermaine had asked us instead of the Rangers?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ answered La Mar. ‘We would probably do better than the Rangers. Oulte takes too many risks. And remember, the old man wasn’t ‘asking’ anybody yesterday.’

  ‘Is he here?’ asked Rhone.

  ‘No, I don’t see him,’ said La Mar. ‘Still up on the roof, would be my guess. That’s where I finally caught up with him last night, up there watching the Rangers lift off.’

  Aesca remembered that La Mar had waited in Med, unwilling to disturb Quartermaine while he sat with his scout, giving up after a half hour or so to go on to other duties. She had been there when Aesca had started arguing with Michael. Perhaps that had driven her away.

  They fought over Spence, but he was only a token of their discord. She did not want Spence to go. In her heart she did not want any of them to go, most especially the big lout in front of her. But she could not say that. For Spence she had a case. His walk through the stun had damaged his nerve pathways, permanently. There was a delay in his reaction time and he was slow to find his balance. He had been discharged from Med; that was true. Declared fit for duty, yes, but that was before this plan for the Rim was set. She knew ‘all out’ when she heard it in the Commander’s voice. She knew how the marines would react to that. They would throw their lives away. They would do the impossible every day until they died, still not knowing the meaning of the word. Well, this one had already done the impossible. He didn’t have it left in him to do it again. They must see that.

  Michael, her Michael, had called for tests to thwart her. ‘He wants to go. He is fit.’

  She had pulled him into the corridor, out of the young man’s hearing. ‘He has been hurt. He is less than he was. Maybe he is still more than many others, but the Rim, Michael? There is not enough left for the Rim!’

  ‘He is a marine. If he is battle ready, he goes.’ That was all he offered her in reply to her plea. ‘It is our way.’

  Her anger took over. She kicked open the door to the adjacent wardroom and dragged him in. ‘Your way! This is your way! The Marine way!’ She swung her arm to show him. Six beds with wounded marines, most barely able to turn their heads to contemplate her violent entrance.

  ‘They would crawl from their beds to join yo
u if they could. That’s the marine way! Do you want to see my way?’ she shouted. ‘This is my way!’ In her fury, she went from bed to bed ripping the sheets off. ‘Those cuts, those stitches, they are mine! Those pins, that amputation, mine!’ Pointing to old scars crossed by bandages, ‘Look! Here is my new work over my old!’ She took a tray full of instruments and dashed it to the floor. ‘Do I care for you only to have you return to that place to be maimed again and again until you die!’ She trembled in her anger, near paralysed by her wrath, unable to speak further, staring into his eyes.

  He broke first, dropping his gaze to the floor. With a sad shake of his head he turned and left the room. It felt like minutes before she could move. She went about the room in silence, replacing the sheets. None of her patients would meet her eye.

  When she stepped back into the corridor she found a small group of marines celebrating, patting a smiling Spence on the back, congratulating him. Michael was with them, his back turned to her. This is not over yet, she said to herself. She crossed to the counter to pick up a recordboard then ambled along the wall, cycling through the pages in apparent study. She had med patches on the fingertips of her left hand, something she did often on busy days. With her wards full it saved trips to the cabinets. It was also less threatening to her patients, a touch of her hand and pain was relieved, no need for the ritual of an injection. She was judicious in their use, well practiced in their application, something Spence would soon find out. Once in a bed, they will not be able to take him. She turned to the marines, arm out for one last word with Spence, and an ever so reasonable smile on her face.

  Mike stepped in front of her. They locked stares.

  She was the first to break this time. The set of his eyes was stone, so much like the Grey’s, evidence of an intractable will. That she could face. But not the faint sheen of reproach that was the trace of the man she loved.